Senior Advocacy Officer, Africa (Inclusive Financial Systems & Digital Public Infrastructure)

Tags: international relations finance Environment
  • Added Date: Thursday, 08 May 2025
5 Steps to get a job in the United Nations

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, weโ€™re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The TeamThe Program Advocacy and Communications (PAC) team works in partnership with program teams and other teams in Global Policy and Advocacy (GPA) to achieve their policy and finance goals by:
- Developing and coordinating the execution of advocacy and communications strategies.
- Leveraging leadership and foundation voice to implement advocacy strategies.
- Developing and managing a grant portfolio dedicated to achieving advocacy outcomes.
- Directly advocating with sector leaders, influencers, media and government officials in order to achieve advocacy outcomes.
- Leading issue-specific communications in service of advocacy goals.
- Developing policy recommendations in partnership with programmatic and regional offices.

The Senior Advocacy Officer, Africa will support the PAC strategies of two program teams: Inclusive Financial Systems and Digital Public Infrastructure.

The Inclusive Financial Systems (IFS) team believes that valuable, low-cost financial products offer a pathway out of poverty, and that digital financial systems can enable the private sectorโ€™s delivery of such products to the poor sustainably and at scale. IFS supports the buildout of inclusive digital financial services (DFS) systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by 1) enabling policies and regulations which support the expansion of inclusive financial services while also protecting users; 2) supporting the implementation of inclusive instant payments systems (IIPS), 3) driving scale and economic sustainability by promoting pro-poor use cases, including government to person payments, wage payments, digital merchant payments, and productive credit; and 4) closing the gender gap in the usage of formal financial products.

The Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) team supports country efforts to build inclusive and interoperable DPI, including identification, data sharing, and credentialing systems (among other DPI components). While this teamโ€™s primary focus is to support LMICsโ€™ DPI efforts, this team will also act as a functional team offering advisory services, grant management, and technical assistance to other foundation strategies (in health, education, agriculture, etc.) which are working to incorporate DPI into their work. The DPI team invests in a range of efforts to help countries build DPI that is secure and inclusive, including open-source digital public goods that countries can use to build their own DPI, technical assistance facilities to help countries implement DPI with the appropriate regulations and safeguards, and research to inform DPI policies and implementation strategies.

Your Role

We are seeking an expert in IFS, DPI, and advocacy. The Senior Advocacy Officer, Africa (IFS & DPI) will develop a strategy to 1) support and encourage African government decision-makers to invest in DPI and adopt policy measures which expand financial inclusion; and 2) ensure those decision-makers have access to the evidence, technologies, technical assistance, and regulatory guidance needed to build safe and inclusive DPI. The postholder will build a partner/grantee ecosystem to help implement this strategy. This will require partnerships with global advocacy and technical assistance partners (e.g., World Bank, UN, AfricaNenda, Co-Develop, Better than Cash Alliance), African regional bodies (e.g., African Union, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Continental Free Trade Agreement Secretariat, African Development Bank), African country government decision-makers, civil society organizations, and the private sector. The selected candidate will represent the foundation with African governments and regulators, partner closely with the IFS, DPI, PAC, and Africa Regional Office (ARO) teams to refine and implement this strategy, and determine how to leverage the foundationโ€™s voice to advance our strategic goals.

The postholder will be based in Addis Ababa, and report to the Deputy Director, Global Policy and Advocacy.

What Youโ€™ll Do

Recommended for you